Page 51 - ATT DEI Annual Report

Truly a Hollywood Story!

D arrin Dortch knows a thing or two about bank back in St. Louis. It’s about a struggling
recent college graduate who is trying to build a
how to tell a great story. As a kid growing
up in St. Louis, he was obsessed with “adult” respectable banking career but gets stuck working
movies like “Halloween,” “Taxi Driver,” and “The as a teller at a ratchet neighborhood bank in the
Silence of the Lambs.” Fascinated by their dark most dangerous part of town. “The jokes pretty THAT MEETING CAME
characters and twisting plots, he dreamed of much write themselves,” he says. “ Intro Employees Communities Customers Content Suppliers Awards
someday writing his own scary stories and turning
them into blockbuster movies. Dortch submitted “Short Changed” as part of his WITH NO GUARANTEES,
application to the American Black Film Festival’s
It’s a dream he’s relentlessly pursued his whole life. (ABFF) writing competition. Launched in partnership BUT IT WAS JUST THE
After graduating with a degree in film production with Turner, the competition shines a spotlight on
from Webster University, Dortch worked odd diverse writers in comedy and drama writing. OPPORTUNITY DORTCH
jobs and saved up enough money to move to Los
Angeles in 2008. But making it in L.A. is tough, even Dortch’s script won, securing him a cash prize,
for the most industrious of Hollywood dreamers. a trip to the film festival in Miami and the NEEDED TO LAND HIS
opportunity to sit down with Turner executives. Darrin Dortch
Dortch’s first gig in the movie industry was in post- That meeting came with no guarantees, but it was Story Editor, “Claws” TNT, FIRST GIG AS A STAFF
production. “In that field alone, there just aren’t just the opportunity Dortch needed to land his first Warner Horizon Television Inc.
a lot of black people working in the business,” he gig as a staff writer on the hit TNT series “Claws.” WRITER ON THE HIT
says. “I would say one of the biggest challenges [of
being a person of color in Hollywood] is working in Dortch says his first day in that writer’s room was 51
a field where there aren’t a lot of people that look a dream come true. It was also a little intimidating. TNT SERIES “CLAWS.”
like me.” But when his boss noticed that he was a bit quiet,
she encouraged him to get out of his shell and not
Despite the lack of representation around him, to hold back.
Dortch never abandoned his dream. “I don’t really
know what I’d be doing if I didn’t write,” he says. And “So I was pitching things that first day, and some AT&T D&I Annual Report 2019
so he wrote and wrote, generating over 20 scripts outrageous things too. It was a very fun first day,
for feature films, short films and TV pilots. and it’s been like that ever since,” he says. “I’ve
had a great experience [working with Warner].
One of those pilots, “Short Changed,” was loosely Obviously, they took a chance on me. They’ve
based on Dortch’s time working at a small been very open-minded.”